American Airlines is bucking an industry-wide trend to retire 50-seater single-cabin aircraft and is re-introducing CRJ200s on at least ten domestic routes next year in partnership with its regional capacity provider Air Wisconsin flying under the American Eagle brand. According to schedules data at hand confirmed by an American Airlines spokesperson, the following routes from Chicago O'Hare will again see the smaller city hoppers from April 2023: Appleton, Flint, Dayton James M. Cox, Cedar Rapids, Omaha Eppley, Huntsville, Kalamazoo, Manhattan, Milwaukee General Mitchell, and Waterloo. This comes as Air Wisconsin switches back from United Airlines – which is phasing out single-cabin 50-seat E145s and CRJ-200s by 2026 – to American Airlines early next year under a new five-year capacity purchase agreement. Under its terms, Air Wisconsin may deploy up to sixty CRJ-200s under the American Eagle brand, starting with forty phased in monthly from March 2023 until October 2023. According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, Air Wisconsin owns sixty-three CRJ200LRs and one CRJ200ER. In April 2020, American Airlines had announced the retirement of all CRJ200s operated by regional partner PSA Airlines. <br/>
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Malaysia Airlines is to suspend flights to Brisbane from end-March 2023, following a network rationalisation exercise undertaken as part of a “thorough business review”. The move, announced on 24 November, appears to be the first route cut made as the airline emerges from two years of the pandemic, and comes as it battles strong financial headwinds in the near term Airline chief Izham Ismail says: “After a thorough business review, we have made a difficult decision to suspend our operations into Brisbane to ensure we operate and utilise our fleet at an optimum level, as well as maximising revenue on every route we fly to, while facing strong headwinds from the continued increase in fuel cost, forex and interest rate.” The move means Brisbane loses its sole air link to Malaysia: Cirium schedules data shows Malaysia Airlines operates thrice-weekly flights between Kuala Lumpur and Brisbane with its Airbus A330-300s. The Oneworld carrier will continue flying to its four remaining Australian points – Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth – “without change”. Izham notes that the Australian network has held strong in recent months, with forward bookings to Australia (excluding Brisbane) “significantly ahead” of pre-pandemic levels. Capacity by March 2023 is expected to hit 98%, underscoring a faster rebound since borders reopened. While Brisbane appears to be the only route to be axed from Malaysia Airlines’ network, it is unclear if further cuts will be made. The airline has, however, added new destinations to its network in 2022, including to Doha, Yogyakarta in Indonesia, as well as Tokyo Haneda.<br/>
Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd is in talks with aircraft manufacturers about orders for medium-haul aircraft and dedicated freighters, a senior executive said on Friday. "Overall we have enough long-haul aircraft to fulfil Cathay Pacific's growth plan," Chief Customer and Customer Officer Ronald Lam said during an analyst briefing, citing existing orders for Airbus SE A350 and Boeing Co 777X planes. Lam said the focus would be on acquiring more medium-haul jets to operate in the Asia-Pacific region as well as dedicated freighters, though he did not provide the numbers or types being considered. The long-serving executive, who will take over as CE on Jan. 1, had raised the prospect of jet orders in an interview with Bloomberg last month. The talks with manufacturers come as the airline looks to rebuild after being hit hard by more than two years of tough passenger and quarantine rules in Hong Kong that ended only recently. The airline last week forecast a "substantial" annual loss even though second-half results are expected to improve sequentially thanks to an uptick in travel and air cargo demand. Lam told analysts that the passenger outlook was improving but that cargo demand and prices had weakened compared to an "exceptional" performance in 2021. "The freight rate compared to last year has been on a downward trend, but compared to a normal year it is still at slightly elevated levels," he said. "There is a lot of uncertainty about 2023."<br/>